The lost art of doodling

By Xenia Hanusiak

October 6, 2009 — 11.01am

You probably remember the last time you Googled, but when was the last time you doodled? Were you on the phone, in a lecture or perhaps subverting your frustration and boredom at a business meeting? When was the last time you let your pen wander aimlessly on a piece of paper, letting your imagination and subconscious take over, creating swirls, lines and figures, the remnants of which only ended up in the rubbish bin?

The question is, since these days, our hands are more likely to be busied at the computer rather than with a pen, do we Google more than we doodle, and if so what becomes of us if we lose the art of doodling? If you were New Zealand filmmaker, kinetic sculptor and artist Len Lye your doodling would not end up in that rubbish bin. Len Lye left behind seven metres of archives – 1400 works on paper – most of them doodles, some found them on shopping lists, some in diaries and some on telephone memos. But from these doodles Lye's inspiration took hold and his doodles became sculptures, works of art and moments in films. His results can be currently viewed at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Far from being a waste of time, doodling can actually stimulate your brain - as it did for Leonardo Da Vinci.

Lye believed that doodling subverted the conscious mind, harmonising the mind and body. While many of us believe our scratches on paper are irrelevant and wasteful, psychologists conclude that the activity actually stimulates the brain. In a recent report by a group of researchers at the University of Plymouth, a study of doodlers concluded that doodling boosted concentration, recalled memory more quickly and anchored the mind. Doodling is also a way of communicating with images rather than the written or spoken word – plausible support for the expression of graffiti, one might say. One of the greatest doodlers of history is Leonardo da Vinci.

Describing himself as an unlettered man, da Vinci's lack of knowledge in Latin and Greek prevented him from communicating with the learned men of his time. So, his scientific experiments and musings were set down in drawing, some of them, as we know included conceptualisations of the modern helicopter, a tank and solar power inventions. Another famous doodler was Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, who accidentally discovered his graphic representation of prime numbers – known as the Ulam Spiral — while doodling at an academic conference. And while these examples serve to remind us that doodling is the start of something tangible, there is just as much to be said about the joy for joy's sake sensation of letting the pen and mind take on a journey, something like the adventurous flaneur. It also sets an appreciation for the ephemeral or liminal experience — experiences that are under threat in our endgame lives. If we asked Italian essayist and author Calvino he would ask us to consider these imaginative musings as points of knowledge and the subconscious as an instrument of knowledge. Leonardo da Vinci would agree, so would graffiti artists. Closer to home, consider for a moment one of Australia's longest running children's shows – Mr Squiggle. For 40 years Australian children sent in doodles, only to have them created into artistic conclusions complete with miraculous tales. What a wonderful introduction to the world of the imagination. To doodle or Google — that is question. The answer is clear. To doodle!